This invention relates generally to pedestrian safety systems and, more particularly, to a method and system for the safety of pedestrians at a restaurant having a drive through lane to facilitate picking up food and beverage items and that intersects with the path of pedestrians entering and exiting the restaurant.
Fast food restaurants with drive through lanes have been around for decades for the convenience of busy people who would rather eat while driving or riding in the car than to sit down for a meal. To accommodate parking on at least two sides of a respective restaurant, the drive through lane intersects the path of restaurant patrons on at least one side. So, for a few seconds a pedestrian walks across the path of automobiles having just picked up their order. Crossing a parking lot or drive through lane is usually not a problem; however, when a customer exits a door to the restaurant immediately into the drive through lane, an accident may occur. If either a customer or a driver is not diligent before advancing forward, a collision between the car and the patron is inevitable.
Various devices and systems have been proposed for alerting pedestrians regarding the presence of another person or vehicle on an opposite side of a door or passageway. Although presumably effective for their intended purposes, the existing systems have not addressed the unique situation presented by the intersection of a pedestrian door with a drive through lane of a fast food restaurant, namely, to detect and report motion at two separate locations as indicative of a potential collision at a third location (e.g. at an intersection of the drive through lane and an area just outside the pedestrian door).
Therefore, it would be desirable to have a pedestrian safety system and method for detecting the motion of an automobile in a drive through lane outside the restaurant and then activating a pedestrian visual alert device. Similarly, it would be desirable to have a pedestrian safety system and method for detecting the motion of a pedestrian inside a restaurant who is walking toward an exit door and then activating a drive through lane visual alert device. In addition, it would be desirable to have a pedestrian safety system and method for alerting when there is no chance of collision, when there is a cautionary risk of a future collision (based on movement at one or both locations), and when a collision is likely.